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Information requests will cost less
Fee drops to $5 from $25; now critics want shorter wait time
It will now cost you a whole lot less to get information from the province, a move welcomed by at least one government watchdog.
Starting Friday, the government lowered its fee for an application under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to $5 from $25.
“We’re quite happy about the decision,” said Darce Fardy, president of the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, whose group lobbied political parties during this spring’s election campaign to reduce the fee.
Now Mr. Fardy wants the government to move on his organization’s other request; dropping the $15 per half-hour processing fee to $5. His group also wants wait times for the information to be shortened.
“To get through the application and appeal process can be more than a year, and costly to boot,” Mr. Fardy said Friday.
In an opinion piece in this newspaper in July, Mr. Fardy, a former freedom of information review officer for the province, said some members of the public have had to pay thousands of dollars to obtain information. And at times they’ve faced up to an 18-month wait.
The coalition hopes to “push them (government) a little farther,” Mr. Fardy said.
FULL ARTICLE: http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1137705.html
